Dear Editor,
Mississippi is about to have an election. The people running all say that they plan to do what is best for our state and they say that they want drug prices to be as low as possible. Unfortunately, some people have the misguided idea that Pharmacy Benefit Managers are the problem and are supporting legislative mandates that will hurt Pharmacy Benefit Managers.
Pharmacy Benefit Managers negotiate with big drug companies to get the lowest drug prices possible. Businesses and health insurers can hire pharmacy benefit managers to negotiate for them. Just like Walmart can negotiate better prices for Coca Cola than I can, pharmacy benefit managers can negotiate better prices than one company by itself.
The last thing we need is for the government to give more power to big drug companies by limiting pharmacy benefit managers. We need the government to promote competition. We need our lawmakers to reject mandates limiting pharmacy benefit managers so that they can continue to force drug companies to offer the best prices for consumers like me and you.
In my 30 years at Livingston Insurance Agency here in Yazoo City, I have heard lots of ideas that sounded good but, because they weren’t completely thought through, turned out to be very bad. Big government mandates limiting pharmacy benefits managers are a bad idea.
Sincerely,
Kip Carroll
